DETROIT - If it can go wrong, it will go wrong of late for the Detroit Red Wings.

Squandering another two-goal lead and going another game without a power-play goal, the Wings fell to the Columbus Blue Jackets, 3-2, Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena.

"Again, 2-0 we had a lot of good things going then we stopped doing the stuff we need to do to be successful," Niklas Kronwall said. "We kept turning pucks over around the blue line, couldn't get it deep enough and it came back to haunt us later in the game."

The Wings had back-to-back power play chances midway through the third period with the score tied at 2-2.

Advertisement

"That's where the puck has to go in," Kronwall said. "No excuses. You have a chance because they're down, it's as simple as that. That's where we lost the game."

Vinny Prospal scored the game winner for Columbus with 24.7 seconds left in regulation, taking advantage of a Wings turnover by Damien Brunner deep in the Blue Jackets' zone that led to a 3-on-2.

RJ Umberger and Derek Dorsett also scored for Columbus, while Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves.

Brunner and Valtteri Filppula scored for Detroit and Jimmy Howard made 21 saves.

It's the third time in the last five games the Wings have built a two-goal lead and lost.

"We talked about we want to have a good start and we did, now we just have to find a way to finish it off," Henrik Zetterberg said. "We've got to play for 60 minutes. It won't be perfect for 60 minutes, we all know that, but our lowest level's got to be higher than it is. If we do that, we will win some games."

The Blue Jackets are dead last in the Western Conference standings.

"Bottom line is we gave up two goals in the third period and we lost," said Wings coach Mike Babcock, whose squad is 0-3-2 in its last five games. "We had to win here. It's just one of those games you've just gotta win. You have to find ways to win home games, and now we have two points out of a possible 10. Any way you look at it that's a slippery slope. We can make all of the excuses we want for ourselves, the bottom line is we had to find a way to win tonight."

With the game tied, the Wings had back-to-back power plays at the midway point of the third period, including nine seconds of a 5-on-3 with the faceoff in Columbus' zone, and could failed to convert.

"Obviously we needed a power-play goal and we didn't get one," Babcock said. "We had some good chances. I thought their goaltender played good. We had some good play in their zone. Bottom line is we didn't score and they did. They banged in two. They walked out of the corner on one and banged it off his pads, and then we threw it to the net, bounced out to a 3-on-2 and we didn't sort it out very good. It was pretty easy to sort out. We didn't need to give up the clear-cut chance to Prospal when we did."

Detroit has not scored a power play goal in three straight games and have failed to do so in three of its last four.

"We felt we created chances, had a lot of shots, but we couldn't really find a way to get the puck in there," Zetterberg said. "If we get one goal there, hopefully we get going. We did a lot of good things on the PP but it's still not good enough. We can't score."

Columbus tied the game up five minutes into the third period, taking advantage of a turnover by Zetterberg in the Wings' zone. Dorsett backhanded home a rebound, after a nice left pad save by Howard, off a shot by Derick Brassard.

"When we're playing the way we want to play the game we're a really good team and hard to keep up with, but right now there aren't enough details in our game and that's something we have to work on to get back on track," Kronwall said. "We have to get better."

Just 18 seconds in, Brunner opened the scoring coming out from behind the Blue Jackets goal and shoving a puck between Bobrovsky's legs after fanning on his first attempt.

A little over two minutes later, Filppula just got the heel of his stick on a shot by Brian Lashoff in the faceoff circle to change direction and beat Bobrovsky between the legs.

However, less than a minute after the Wings built a two-goal lead, Columbus got on the board with a power play goal. Umberger cradled a shot from the point by Cam Atkinson and brought it to his forehand to beat a sprawled out Howard.

With 16:12 left in the second period, Artem Anisimov was taken off on a stretcher after the back of his head hit the ace when he came in off balance behind the Wing' goal and fell between Ian White and Kyle Quincey, whose elbow came down on top of him.

Anisimov was alert and never lost consciousness. He was taken to the DMC for further observation.

Quincey also went to the locker room after the incident and never returned from a left ankle injury.